Saturday, November 01, 2025

GoLocalProv News Team

 

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Crozel now closed PHOTO: Crozel

Crozer Health in Pennsylvania was a sister hospital group to Rhode Island’s CharterCARE. Both were owned by the bankrupt Prospect Medical Holdings and each was a second-tier hospital group that had suffered through budget cuts, layoffs, and a lack of investments.

 

Crozer closed, and more than 3,000 workers are out of a job. It happened fast.

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As GoLocal reported on Friday, Prospect has filed to close the CharterCARE hospitals — Roger Williams and Fatima hospitals. The other option, proposed by Prospect, is to turn the hospitals over to the state of Rhode Island.

 

The clock is on the proverbial field for the two Rhode Island hospitals.

 

Here is How Fast Crozer Closed

On Monday, April 21, 2025, Prospect filed a bankruptcy notice announcing it was closing Delaware County’s Crozer-Chester Medical Center and Taylor Hospital.

 

A bankruptcy hearing on the closure plans was scheduled for 2:30 p.m., the next day, Tuesday.

 

“Prospect, a for-profit company, acquired Crozer in 2016 in a deal valued at $300 million, then leveraged Delaware County’s largest health-care system for investors’ financial gain. Two years later, Prospect borrowed $1.12 billion to pay off debt and issued a $457 million dividend to its owners, Leonard Green & Partners, as well as to individual owners, Prospect executives Sam Lee and David Topper,” wrote the Philadelphia Inquirer.

 

Despite efforts by state officials to keep the hospitals open, the bankruptcy judge granted the closure petition.

 

By May 2  — just 10 days after Prospect filed the petition to close the two hospitals — both of the Crozer Health hospitals were closed, and more than 3,000 healthcare employees were out of work.

 

CBS reported, “This is the only hospital in this community. There’s a lot of violence that does go on within the City of Chester, and where are these people supposed to go?” Renee Carter, a patient care technician at Crozer-Chester, said. “The elderly people. I have been coming to this hospital since I was a kid. I had both of my children here. It’s just sad. There was a big car accident yesterday, and there was nowhere to take these people. Everything about this situation is sad. Prospect should be ashamed for doing this to such a good community, good workers.”  

 

Immediately, the emergency room waiting time at surrounding hospitals exploded.

 

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Chief Judge Stacey Jernigan of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas. PHOTO: Federal Court

Clock on in Rhode Island

For months, Rhode Island officials have followed a failed strategy to sell $150 million in bonds through a state finance agency to a Georgia-based non-profit with no experience running a hospital. S&P rated the bond BB- with a negative outlook. The bonds have not been sold, and the failed strategy over the past eight months may have done more to ensure the bankruptcy court showdown.

 

On Thursday evening, Prospect filed a 346-page petition before Chief Judge Stacey Jernigan of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas to close the CharterCARE hospitals.

 

On Friday, Rhode Island Attorney General and other officials reacted to the news.

 

On Tuesday, Judge Jernigan will hear Prospect’s petition.

 

The fate of the hospitals and about 2,000 healthcare workers in Rhode Island could be determined on Tuesday.

 

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